DRY AMERICA.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3146, 4 December 1922, Page 7

DRY AMERICA.

PROHIBITION IN WORKING. Mr John S. Steele, the London editor of i|\e Clicagp Tribune, contributes the following article to the World’s News, a London paper : Is America really dry? 1 have been asked this queistaon a hundred times since my return from a trip to my country —the first time since the era. of Prohibition —and my reply is that the country is dry, with, certain minor qualifications. Prohibition is a fact, and the ordinary man in America no longer drinks alcoholic liquor, and no longer seems to care whether he does or not. , ~ ~ J do not propose here to discuss the theory of Prohibition. Personally, 1 don’t like it, chiefly because I regard it as an infringement of personal liberty. lam only interested here in telling facte. . My first impression on landing in New York was that Prohibition was a joke. Friend after friend in his effort to be hospitable invited me to his house, oi flat, whispering in my ear, "I’ve got a bottle,” and when I called, sure enough the bottle was there. Sometimes it was full, sometimes nearly empty, and sometimes it contained whisky, and sometimes some strange liquid "with a kick,” but always it was either the last of a pre-Prohibition stock or it had been obtained in strange and devious ways at great expense. It was reserved for ceremonial occasions, and when it was gone there was no more in sight. As I got farther west, however, conditions changed. Bottles' were fewer and farther apart, and more and more men whom I used to know as steady and industrious drinkers confessed that they had "cut it out” simply because it was too much trouble to get the stuff, and too dangerous to drink it when they did get it. Men and their wives who had at the beginning of the great drought qualified as home brewers and distillers, and who had boasted of the quality of their product., confessed that the family hath tub did not make an ideal mash tub, and that the tea-kettle was a pretty poor still. They, too. have "cut it out” because the result was not worth the trouble. The same is true with regard to the sale of liquor by the trade. In Chicago some of my hospitable friends took me to former saloons (Angliee, publichouses) where for twenty-five cents I could get a drink of real whisky provided I was suitably introduced and vouched for. The drink was a "pony” glass, carefully measured. I decided, after one or two experiments, that a small mouthful of inferior whisky was not worth to me seventy-five cents, plus a walk of a. mile or so, and the necessity of making strange signs to a waiter. Most Americans have come to the same conclusion. Of course, there is whisky to be had. If one lias a sufficiently insistent thirst, plenty of money to satisfy it, and sufficient daring to risk consumption of what is obtained, one can get alcoholic liquor under various names. Some of it is harmless, some-dangerous, and some fatal. The very wealthy, of course can get real liquor at a price, but the fact is that the ordinary everyday American no longer drinks. Beer and wine are unobtainable except by the rich, for the reason that they are too bulky for the "bootlegger” to handle with any degree of safety. Of course, there is plenty of "bootlegging.” New York and Chicago are full of men who peddle illicit liquor from office to office, but, compared with the volume of liquor sold when liquor-selling was legal, their output is a mere drop in the ocean. A certain amount of real liquor comes in over the Canadian border, is smuggled in by sea. and in other ways, but not enough to supply a half of one pdr cent, of the people who used to buy their liquor regularly at the saloons. The great centre of liquor smuggling of the Northern Stales is Halifax, and let mo say at once that not one drop of liquor is smuggled out of Halifax. The Nova Scotia authorities are just as keen as the United States on preventing liquor Smuggling. Halifax Harbor is, however, always full of schooners fitting out for trading voyages.” Having fitted out, they go in ballast to St. Pierre, the small French possession off the coast of Newfoundland, where large depots of liquor have been established. There, of course, it is perfectly legal to trade in liquor. The schooners clear for the Bahamas, Cuba, or some other clime where it is no crime to sell or import liquor, and disappear. Needless to say, they never roach the port for which they cleared, hut a few weeks later they turn up again in Halifax harbor, to prepare for another trip. The Atlantic coast of the United States is several thousand miles long, and it is impossible to police it adequately.

Tlio chief of this traffic is famous throughout North America. He is Captain “Bill” Miller, who a few years ago was skipper of a fishing schooner. Today ho is said to bo a millionaire, and In’s house in Halifax is the finest after the Governor’s. He makes no concealment of his trade, for ho is violating no law in Halifax or in St. Pierre, and ho docs not sail his own boats now, so bo has no need to venture into the United States. All this l does not alter the fact that America is really dry. Imported liquor formed a. small part of her consumption in the old days, and to-day there is less imported than ever. All the American distilleries are closed, and the breweries and vineyards have been turned to other uses. T have been asked if Prohibition will last. I think it will. There is no doubt that the working classes are more prosperous. The women like it, and to-day the women vote. The Churches are nil for it. So arc the bootleggers l , who arc making more money than they ever made before. So are the purveyors and manufacturers of “soft” drinks. Many members of Congress declare privately that they are opposed to Prohibition, but dare not vote for its repeal. Many Americans think that the Volstead Enforcement Act may be amended to allow tlve manufacture and sale of the lighter kinds of beer and native wines, but I think the chances are what Americans call a “fifty-fifty bet.” One tiling must be said: Prohibition has made little change on the farms. The Southern gentleman still makes his “corn liquor,” and the Northern farmer liis apple-jack. After all, there cannot be a revenue agent on every farm.